


trees grow in their throats (any other way)

by WreakingHavok



Series: DreamSMP Canon Studies [2]
Category: DreamSMP
Genre: Gen, It focuses on Tommy during exile so be careful, I’m so happy people started using that, Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Set during The Exile, Suicidal Thoughts, bad and sapnap are related canonically did you know that I didn’t and now here we are, many things happening here, quangst, ready? Here’s the big one, this work is a jumble, why is that a TAG IM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28436802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/pseuds/WreakingHavok
Summary: “Do you drink a lot?” Wilbur wrinkles his nose at the apparition before him.“All the time,” Schlatt says, raising the bottle in his hand. “I’d sell my soul for a glass.”“Huh.”Schlatt snorts something wet into the neck of the bottle. “I’d die for it in a heartbeat.”Wilbur frowns. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”“It’s a joke.” Schlatt takes another swig.“I don’t get it,” Wilbur says.~Featuring Wilbur, Tommy, Schlatt, Quackity, Karl, Bad, Ranboo, and Tubbo, and how they react to death.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Darryl Noveschosch, Alexis | Quackity & Jschlatt, Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs, Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: DreamSMP Canon Studies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099253
Comments: 23
Kudos: 197





	trees grow in their throats (any other way)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khio/gifts).
  * Inspired by [grief in retrospect](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036419) by [Khio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khio/pseuds/Khio). 



> TW: Focuses on Tommy in exile and how he wants to die, talk about suicide and death, Quackity is mentioned to have eaten Schlatt’s heart but it doesn’t show on screen because BadBoyHalo is a family friendly pov
> 
> Disclaimer: this is in no way, shape or form meant to resemble the streamers/content creators who portray these characters. This is solely a character study.
> 
> Title from Golden Antlers by Glass Animals.

Quackity shows up to Schlatt’s funeral, and at first, Bad doesn’t believe it. 

Something has gone wrong. Something has gone very wrong. This can’t be Quackity.

The Quackity whose inauguration Bad had applauded would never be wearing a suit that belonged to someone several sizes larger, wings spread electric through rent fabric as he throws his arms to the sky. The Quackity he’d watched lead Manberg to the best of his ability would never be laughing like this, spitting profanities and defacing a memorial in unpredictable bursts of mania. 

The Quackity Bad had watched fight against the very man who swore him protection and power would never be standing behind the podium, something red and dripping clutched in his fist -

Oh, Prime -

Oh, _Prime_ -

Oh -

Maybe, Bad thinks with shaking hands, stepping back up to the podium and trying not to look down into the open casket - maybe he’d never really seen Quackity before this. He may have the same body, the same mind, but maybe he’s shining a new facet he’s only just discovered in the light of...recent events. Maybe it’s self-expression in its rawest form. 

He hadn’t _known_ Quackity, before, of course, but the kid had made it seem so easy to get a grip on him. He’d been good, ambitious, and a little blindsided but nothing malicious. 

Sapnap has told him story upon story over the years. They used to be centered around his newfound sparring partners, Dream and George, and though Bad had flinched at the descriptions of his son’s violent respawns, he was at least glad there was someone for Sapnap to lean on. 

Perhaps that was a mistake on his part. Perhaps he never should have let Sapnap anywhere near the madman that was Dream. It’s far too late to fix it, but sometimes Bad feels guilt pulling at the base of his skull when he sees how accustomed Sapnap is to pain.

Recently, though, Sapnap’s stories had been less of Dream and more of Quackity and that Jacobs kid Bad sees running around. They’re better stories, fewer tales of brutally hunting people down and more of inside jokes and the specifics of not hurting someone’s wings when you’re, quote, “trying to stretch out their spine via bear hug.” Bad had been grateful to Quackity for that much.

He’d seen the Vice President in person a few times, on stage during speeches and the like, plus Quackity had headed a few trade negotiations between Manberg and the Badlands. Plus, Sam’s almost parental anectodes over dinner painted him a goofy yet well-meaning kid, rational if a bit callous, all jokey smiles and solid handshakes. Nothing like - nothing like this. 

But then, Bad thinks about blood diamond friends and painted-on smiles, and reminds himself how much people can change. Maybe he’d never understood. Maybe no one had. Maybe is the real Quackity, laid bare before an unsuspecting audience, red staining his fingers, heart lodged in his throat as he cheers in celebration.

“That motherfucker’s _dead!_ ” Quackity screams, lips peeled back so far Bad could count every one of his teeth, if he wanted. The audience roars with him, too caught up in the feeling to pay attention to the way Quackity’s wings threaten to take flight without him.

Bad sees Quackity for the first time at Schlatt’s funeral, poised with poison dripping from his lips, and wonders just when he’d let himself go blind.

~

“Tell me again, what dying feels like,” Tommy whispers. 

Wilbur wasn’t asleep, but the sudden voice startles him anyway, a splotch of ink half landing on his leg and half dripping through it to the ground below. 

The sky above them is black, coated in clouds like a funeral shroud. The air is cold. Tommy hadn’t had the strength to build a roof despite the pouring rain, and Wilbur had only the machination to prop something above his own head so he wouldn’t dissolve in the downpour. 

“Yo,” Tommy says, a little louder. “Will. Are you there?” 

“I am,” Wilbur says, putting the quill safely out of harms way. “Why are you still awake?”

Tommy is curled up in the muddy grass, one arm under his head and the other pressed between his knees. “Really, dickhead?” It comes out shaky. Oh, Prime, he must be freezing. 

“Oh, I haven’t got my coat, haven’t got anything for you,” Wilbur mourns, reaching to rifle through his satchel anyway. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t even think about it.”

“It’s fine,” Tommy says, and shuffles into a sitting position. His bare arms come up to circle his knees. “Come on. Tell me what dying feels like.”

Funny. Wilbur’s been jumping at the chance to talk it out, recently. But now, when faced with his soggy younger brother looking years older than Wilbur will ever get, something glues the words in his throat and sticks the pages of his book together.

“What?” he asks pathetically.

“I want to know,” Tommy says with perfect enunciation, yet his voice still breaks. Wilbur remembers with a shock he shouldn’t feel that sixteen is not all that old, actually.

“Why?” is what breaks from his traitorous, melting throat instead of all the things that would help. Something is pulling at the seams of his joints and it hurts.

Tommy’s face twists even further into a scowl. “You keep bringing it up, why’re you -”

“You’ve died before, no?” Wilbur busies himself with smoothing down every crease in the page before him.

“I haven’t,” here Tommy chokes, “haven’t _died_. You’re the only one.” 

“You - you need to sleep, I think,” Wilbur says. “You need to sleep. Don’t bother with this.”

“What was it you said?” Tommy murmurs, and Wilbur makes the fatal mistake of meeting his ice blue eyes that always look like they belong in someone else’s face. 

“I think,” Wilbur says, and sinks ankle-deep into the grass when he tries to stand. 

“What was it you said before?” Tommy’s grin is everything but genuine, the rain burning creases into his skin as it drips from his drenched hair. “Something about a road? Ripping off a fucking plaster? Something about Dad, right? Something about -”

“I need to leave,” Wilbur doesn’t shout, because shouting means there is something wrong and his voice has been hurting ever since he can remember. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“No!” Tommy screams, moving faster than Wilbur can process. His hand shoots out but his feet stay planted in the mud, his stance an odd mix of angry snarl and the shaking shoulders of prey. “Don’t, please, don’t. Don’t.”

Wilbur just stares. His hands are so cold. He feels something like the weight of a cavern wall on his back. 

“You’ll melt,” Tommy adds as an afterthought. “You can’t. You’ll melt.”

“Okay,” Wilbur whispers as agreeably as he can. “Alright, Tommy. If that’s what you want.”

“Okay,” Tommy says. He sits back down in stages, back to looking like something Wilbur would fish out of the sewers. 

“Do you think you can sleep?” Wilbur asks. 

“I don’t feel well,” Tommy says. “I just - I don’t feel well.”

Wilbur brightens at the opportunity. “Is there something you need? Anything I can do?”

“Tell me,” Tommy exhales a defeated breath, “what dying feels like.”

_His bones pull apart like so many puzzle pieces and he cannot stop them all from stabbing into his lungs. He cannot call his family, even though they are all under his hands. Philza pushes diamonds through his chest for a crime he cannot remember, and that is the worst offense of them all._

Wilbur closes his eyes. “You know - you know, I’ve been asked that a lot. I’ve been - what do you think? Let’s - what do you think, Tommy?”

“I think it would feel -” Pause.

“I think, I think I’d -” Longer. Wilbur cracks open an eye, ready to deflect again, but Tommy’s just got his arms around his knees again and his gaze fixed on their spluttering torch.

“I think -” and Tommy’s crying now, silent save the shivers still wracking his body. “I think I’m tired. I’m tired.”

“Then go to sleep,” Wilbur says determinedly. His own hands start to flicker. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m fucking cold,” Tommy says, oddly lackluster, glaring up at him through wet eyelashes. “I can’t fucking sleep, I can’t fucking - I just -”

“It’s going to be fine,” Wilbur says. “Everything’s alright, Tommy.”

“You’re crazy,” Tommy says. “You’re insane. You’re - you’re dead.”

“I’m not crazy,” Wilbur bristles. “Who said I was crazy? I’m not - you don’t think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Tommy amends. Something that is not a smile breaks across his cracked lips. It pulls his face out of proportion, twists him into what Wilbur has only ever seen around glass corners and floating on top of the ocean.

“Good,” Wilbur says.

“I think you had the right idea, actually.”

“Okay,” Wilbur says, fingers clenched around his book so hard his nails phase through the cover.

“I think,” Tommy says, and laughs with his fingernails digging into his scalp, “dying would feel pretty nice, Wilbur. That’s what I think. That’s what I fucking think.”

Wilbur knows some things, but more importantly he doesn’t know other things; he assures himself it’s because of the latter that he lets the conversation end there, and Tommy goes to sleep in the rain and Wilbur couldn’t warm him even if he tried.

~

“Do you drink a lot?” Wilbur wrinkles his nose at the apparition before him.

“All the time,” Schlatt says, raising the bottle in his hand. “I’d sell my soul for a glass.”

“Huh.”

Schlatt snorts something wet into the neck of the bottle. “I’d die for it in a heartbeat.”

Wilbur frowns. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”

“It’s a joke.” Schlatt takes another swig. 

“I don’t get it,” Wilbur says.

“Okay,” Schlatt says. The wind howls at them, but neither of them move.

“What does it feel like to die, Schlatt?” Wilbur asks.

“Don’t you know?”

“Yes,” Wilbur says. He’s said it a thousand times before. “Would it help you to hear what I think?”

“Why not?” Schlatt sighs.

“You’re walking on a road,” Wilbur starts, closing his eyes, “and it’s long and it twists around in the dark, and you stumble over the roadblocks but it’s okay, that’s just a part of it.” 

His eyes open again. Schlatt is staring at him with a mix of confusion and horror. “You’re walking on a road, and then it stops,” he says, “and your father stabs you through the chest.”

“Oh,” Schlatt says.

Wilbur settles onto his haunches. “Now, your turn.”

Schlatt leans back. “I dunno. Don’t think I’m that poetic.”

“It took me a couple tries, too.” Wilbur attempts to smile with a reasonable number of teeth. “Just - describe the feeling.”

“Alright.”

“And if you can find a metaphor -”

“I said, alright,” Schlatt snaps. “Lemme think, for Prime’s sake.”

“Okay! Sorry.” Wilbur runs a finger along his tight-closed lips. 

Schlatt grunts. There’s a stretch of silence. 

“You could come back,” Wilbur says quietly. “Like me. All the way. You could see Quackity again.”

Schlatt laughs, cold, but his eyes squeeze shut like something in him has started to bleed. “No. No, they don’t want me back. I’m - I already had my second fucking chance, Will, and I blew it.”

“Not from my point of view,” Wilbur says, a poor attempt at being helpful. “I don’t even remember you, and I’m sure the others would be open to forgiveness.”

Schlatt breaks his lips away from the bottle for the first time since Wilbur’s started talking to him, and squints into Wilbur’s eyes. “You don’t remember?”

It’s not a lie. It’s not a lie. “They’ve talked about you, but I don’t remember - I don’t remember you.”

Schlatt huffs. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Wilbur says. He doesn’t have a heart to beat, but he can feel it threatening to push through his ribs nonetheless.

“Drowning, by the way,” Schlatt says, hand clawed around the glass like it’s the only thing keeping him here. 

“Huh?”

“Dying,” Schlatt smirks, sad and so familiar Wilbur feels like he might throw up. “Dying feels like drowning.”

~

Bad hears the voices long before he decides to see what’s the matter.

They’re coming from behind the Targay. Bad grips the handle of his pickaxe a little tighter and rounds the corner to two men shouting over each other, both of them pitched high. 

“You bastard,” Karl howls. The language makes Bad start in surprise. Karl’s never been one for that kind of -

“I’ll have you remember, you volunteered, you agreed!” It’s Quackity, red in the face, puffed up indignantly. 

“I didn’t - you didn’t - you -” Karl splutters around his words, hands reaching for his throat like he can somehow pull them out. 

“Sure, blame it on me, I made sure to ask you!” Quackity steps forward, and even though he’s taller, Karl backs up. “We double checked, triple checked, you were so adamant it had to be done, we couldn’t have swayed you if we wanted to!” 

“You didn’t tell me it would,” Karl says, “you didn’t tell me I’d -”

“You knew you’d die! You fucking volunteered! For the nation, for us - don’t tell me you regret it.”

“You didn’t tell me it would feel like this,” Karl shouts, wet; it cracks like the release of a crossbow and sends Quackity’s eyes fluttering shut for a single beat. “You didn’t tell me dying _hurt_.”

Quackity gapes for one, two seconds before he launches back into a whirlwind. “You - you fucking idiot, what the hell did you think it would feel like?”

“I don’t know!” Karl stamps his foot down on the ground, a petulant five year old with new, shiny burn scars creeping up his neck. “You - I don’t know -”

“This isn’t anyone’s fault but yours,” Quackity says, jabbing a finger into Karl’s chest. “You volunteered. You fucking volunteered.”

Karl looks like he’s about to cry. “Quackity, _Quackity -_ ”

“I have work to do,” Quackity spits, bristled. “Stop whining and help, or get out of my way.”

Karl’s mouth moves. Nothing comes out. He backs up slowly, and when he turns around to find himself face to face with Bad, the only noise he makes is a small gasp.

“Sorry, Karl,” Bad says, trying to sound gentle. He steps out of Karl’s way and watches him half-stumble, half-run away until his bright sweater is a speck in the distance.

“Quackity,” Bad calls. The hybrid stops rustling in the chest by the side of the path, freezing, pulling his wings taught. 

“Bad.” He sounds drained. “What do you need?”

“I was just on my way home,” Bad says. Quackity seems to decide deciphering the truth of that statement is not worth the energy. “Do you need help?”

Quackity whirls, expression just as twisted with - not anger, Bad is surprised to note. Not anger. Not from this close. “I don’t need _help_ , Bad. It was Karl’s own fault - since you so clearly eavesdropped, you should know, alright, so leave me the fuck alone!”

“Language,” Bad mutters on autopilot, and Quackity groans in frustration. 

“Shut the fuck up, man, shut - shut the goddam -”

“You’re right, I did hear,” Bad interrupts before that can go any further. “I meant - I was just asking if you needed any help with your work.”

Quackity blinks. He waits for a minute, eyes squinted like he’s trying to find a loophole. “I don’t need help with my work.”

“Okay.” Bad shrugs and gives a smile. “I’ll be around if you change your mind.”

“Right,” Quackity says. 

Bad doesn’t move. “Hey, Quackity?”

“What,” the Vice President snaps. 

“If you ever need somewhere to go, if you ever need company, Skeppy and I would love to have you for dinner, sometime.”

Quackity just stares and stares and stares, so small and so young, and for a moment Bad sees Sapnap reflected in the tense of his neck and small hands that have killed friends.

“Thanks,” Quackity says. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Bad says, and it is the last he sees of Quackity for a while.

~

“Are you feeling okay, Tommy?”

Tommy scowls up at Ranboo. “Feeling fine.”

“You look - you look pale, that’s all. Are you eating? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not dying, Ranboo,” Tommy says. “Shut up.”

Ranboo kicks a loose stone over the edge of the bridge. It falls in slow motion, and Tommy watches it go until his vision blurs into a haze of red. “That’s good.”

“Is it?” Tommy asks. 

“Yes,” Ranboo says. “I’m very certain, actually.”

“Iunno,” Tommy says. His whole body hurts. Somewhere in him, he knows he is hungry, knows he’s weakened considerably, so much so that he couldn’t even run. Somewhere else, that feels fucking euphoric. “You died yet, Ranboo?”

“Have I died yet? No.” Ranboo crumples down on the bridge beside Tommy, folding his too-long limbs to his body.

“I have.”

“I’m sorry,” Ranboo says. His armor sizzles a sparkling mirage in the light of the lava lake below.

The Nether is hell. The Nether is hell, and it’s so fucking hot it hurts to breathe. Ghasts litter the sky, so far avoiding the pair, but their screams echo through the boiling cavern effortlessly. 

They’re beautiful. Tommy tries to picture what they feel like, all intangible and shit, with magma in their lungs and their eyes sewed shut. He thinks until it starts to burn. He thinks until he feels like his hands are going to catch fire.

Ranboo clears his throat. “Tommy? You there?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “I’m here.”

“You’ve died,” Ranboo prompts. Tommy wonders vaguely why he’s bothering to keep up a conversation. _Pity_ , he remembers - Ranboo’s fucking boiling over with it. “What’s it like?”

“Doesn’t feel nice,” Tommy mutters, maybe a warning, maybe a reminder. Pain still hits hard. Part of him thinks it gets worse with each reincarnation.

“Yeah,” Ranboo says. “I’d imagine not. Does it - do you feel it? Through to the end?”

“Depends.” Sometimes he can still feel the arrow through his ribs. To this day, the glowing white of Eret’s eyes takes his skin and chars it the color of obsidian. “But it always hurts.”

“It hurts,” Ranboo repeats. “Well. I’ll do my best to avoid it.”

“Doesn’t last long, though, if you do it right,” Tommy continues. “It only hurts for a little. Then you don’t feel anything until you wake up.”

“Oh.”

“Tubbo said that burning stops hurting before you even die.”

“What?”

“Nerve endings or some shit. I don’t know. Maybe he was lying.”

“Maybe. I think he might have been, man, that sounds -”

“Maybe he wasn’t.”

“Tommy,” Ranboo says suddenly, “I’d like to go somewhere else. Can we talk somewhere else?”

“What,” Tommy snaps, turning his head to meet Ranboo’s Christmas-light eyes, “do I make you uncomfortable?”

“No, you don’t make me uncomfortable,” Ranboo says. “I just don’t like the Nether, all that much.”

“Well,” Tommy says. “Well.”

“I think,” Ranboo starts, slow and careful, “that you should avoid dying again.”

Tommy laughs. It’s weak. It’s bitter. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Ranboo’s mouth is pressed into a line. “You know, I - I don’t have many friends, so, it would be - I wouldn’t want to lose my first one.”

“Fuck you,” Tommy spits, and struggles to his feet, lightheaded with the effort of it all. “Fuck you, man, fuck you.”

“What?” Ranboo rises like he weighs nothing, taking a few hesitating steps after him. “Tommy? Tommy! Tommy, come back!”

Tommy runs across his bridge for the portal, recklessly, and for a moment he closes his eyes. The wish that his feet would slip gets stuck in his throat and he chokes on it, and he doubles over but he keeps running and he doesn’t fall. 

Ranboo doesn’t chase him. Tommy starts to cry, water burning on his cheeks, and his mouth tastes like blood when he spills out of the portal onto the soaked through grass of Logstedshire. 

“Tommy?” It’s Dream, mask pulled slightly to the left, one glowing purple eye cutting through the rain. 

“Fuck,” Tommy says. He can’t stand. 

“You’re going to catch a cold,” is all Dream says. His hand grips Tommy’s arm and pulls. It’s not gentle. Tommy leans into it anyway.

“What are you doing?” Tommy mutters, exhausted yet again. It seems all he does now is get tired and yell at people and sleep until he wakes up to do it all again.

“Getting you inside.” Dream’s carrying most of his weight, actually. Tommy’s bare foot catches painfully on a rock. “What would I do if you got sick? I wouldn’t want to lose a friend.”

Tommy feels vaguely sick to his stomach. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” Dream says. He manhandles Tommy into the tent, lowering him onto the painfully worn mattress. 

“Don’t leave,” Tommy begs, watching Dream through blurry eyes. 

“Alright,” Dream says softly. His hand brushes Tommy’s forehead. “You’re hot.”

“Was in the Nether.”

“Why do you keep going back there?” 

“I’m cold.”

“I worry about you.” Dream’s hand tightens imperceptibly in his hair. 

“I know,” Tommy says.

“Try and sleep. It’s getting late.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, thinking that he’d give anything in the world to never feel like this again. 

“Goodnight,” Dream tells him.

Tommy closes his eyes. 

When he opens them next, he’s drowning.

~

Here is what happens - Karl Jacobs and Ranboo don’t know what it’s like to lose a part of them, and then they do, simple as that. Here is what happens - Tommy hides under his brother’s feet with the sword of Damocles closer to his head than it’s ever been before. Here is what happens - Quackity screams out the last of the breath in his lungs and he loses, and Technoblade does not do either.

Here is what happens. Tubbo makes it back to L’Manberg as the sun rises. He stands firmly on the ground. He looks up and up and up. 

Here is what happens - Tubbo breathes, and the sun doesn’t fucking stop moving, and Tommy is dead and it feels like falling.

**Author's Note:**

> I accidentally deleted a chunk of this just before I wanted to post it and it took me like an hour to get everything in order
> 
> Anyway I’m not the proudest of this one, I feel like I can do better, but it’s been sitting in my drafts for a while so I thought I would finish it up and put it out there! Let me know what you thought and (considersubscribingitsfreeandyoucanunsubscribeatany-)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [brother's keeper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29412711) by [Khio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khio/pseuds/Khio)




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